Go

Go is truly the game that takes "minutes to learn, but a lifetime to master." The rules are very simple, but lead to a wealth of complex situations and possibilities. Unlike Chess, which even at the beginning has a highly limited number of potential games (10^50 or so), Go begins with an empty world and opens it up to a vast array of potential development (10^250 or so).

There are different rule sets for Go. These often have to do with whether or not unoccupied territory is counted during scoring. While of course it doesn't really matter who wins, the Japanese rule set is slightly subtler than the Chinese or Korean sets. However, we won't get into that here. These are the basic rules.

1. The game of go
Go is a game in which two players compete in skill on a board ("goban"), from the beginning of the game until the game stops according to point 9, to see which can take more territory. A "game" refers to the moves played until the "end of the game."

2. Play
The players can play one move at a time in alternation, one player playing the black stones, his/her/its opponent the white stones.

3. Point of play
The board is a grid of 19 horizontal and 19 vertical lines forming 361 intersections. A stone can be played on any unoccupied intersection (called an "empty point") on which Article 4 permits it to exist. The point on which a stone is played is called, unsurprisingly, its "point of play."

4. Stones that may exist on the board
After a move is completed, a group of one or more stones belonging to one player exists on its points of play on the board as long as it has a horizontally or vertically adjacent empty point, called a "liberty." No group of stones without a liberty can exist on the board.

5. Capture
If, due to a player's move, one or more of his/her/its opponent's stones cannot exist on the board according to the preceeding article, the player must remove all these opposing stones, which are called "prisoners." In this case, the move is completed when the stones have been removed.

6. Ko
A shape in which the players can alternately capture and recapture one opposing stone is called a "ko" (literally: "eternity" or "infinity"). A player whose stone has been captured in a ko cannot recapture in that ko on the next move.

7. Life and death

Stones are said to be "alive" if they cannot be captured by the opponent, or if capturing them would enable a new stone to be played that the opponent could not capture. Stones which are not alive are said to be "dead."

In the confirmation of life and death after the game stops in Article 9, recapturing in the same ko is prohibited. A player whose stone has been captured in a ko may, however, capture in that ko again after passing once for that particular ko capture.

8. Territory
Empty points surrounded by the live stones of just one player are called "eye points." Other empty points are called "dame." Stones which are alive but possess dame are said to be in "seki." Eye points surrounded by stones that are alive but not in seki are called "territory," each eye point counting as one point of territory.

9. End of the game

When a player passes his/her/its move and his opponent passes in succession, the game ends.

After stopping, the game ends through confirmation and agreement by the two players about the life and death of stones and territory. This is called, unsuprisingly, "the end of the game."

If a player requests resumption of a stopped game, his/her/its opponent must oblige and has the right to play first.

10. Determining the result or What happened?

After agreement that the game has ended, each player removes any opposing dead stones from his/her/its territory as is, and adds them to his/her/its prisoners.

Prisoners are then filled into the opponent's territory, and the points of territory are counted and compared. The player with more territory wins. If both players have the same amount the game is a draw, which is called a "jigo."

If one player lodges an objection to the result, both players must reconfirm the result by, for example, replaying the game and examining the moves.

After both players have confirmed the result, the result cannot be changed under any circumstances. And who cares anyway. It's a game.

11. Resignation
During a game, a player may end the game by admitting defeat. This is called "resigning." The opponent is said to "win by resignation."

12. No result
When the same whole-board position is repeated during a game, if the players agree, the game ends without result.

13. Both players lose

After the game stops according to article 9, if the players find an effective move, which would affect the result of the game, and therefore cannot agree to end the game, both players lose.

If a stone on the board has been moved during the game and the game has proceeded, the game continues with the stone returned to its original point of play. If the players cannot agree, both players lose.

The movie/DVD covers: same color scheme, and very similar outfits/primary poses/facial expressions of Uma Thurman and Sarah Polley.

Both start with two characters discussing a relatively inane topic over breakfast in a diner. The scene ends and the credits begin before we ever really have an idea of what the heck's going on. We return to the restaraunt in the end for a more-developed rehash of the opening scene.

Multiple distinct but intertwined story lines presented in an episodic fashion.

A body that has to be disposed of, now.

Lance: "I sell only the highest grade heroin. Don't take it all at once."
Todd Gaines: "This is medicinal grade e. Don't take too much."

A further comment on the game of go: It has been said that, if advanced civilizations exist on other planets and they play games as we do, then while chess is probably a unique invention of humanity, but those other civilizations surely will have invented go, so simple are its rules. Oh, there might be a minor change in size of board or rules, but it will be a recognizable version, if they share anything at all with humanity.

There are various synonyms in the source languages and also various roman character transcriptions, so there are a bunch of names you might see, this is a list of all the variations I've seen, not necessarily exhaustive:

According to the orthodoxlegend, Go was invented by the semi-mythical Emperor Yao in the 23rd century BCE to teach his son, Dan Zhu, to think strategically. Normally Go is referred to as "about 4000 years old." Modern scholarship suggests it more likely that the game originated in the 10th to 4th centuries BCE. Whatever the actual date, while chess has been tweaked quite a bit in the last handful of centuries, Go has remained fairly stable for thousands of years. Around 740 CE the game was brought to Japan where it became popular among the samurai and noble classes. At one point Tokugawa Ieyasu created a Ministry of Go to be headed by the winner of an annual tournament. In the Meiji Restoration era Go fell out of favor, but play was revived in Japan in the 1920's (when Japan was getting all hot and bothered by Imperialism and the good old days). Though immigrants were probably playing the game long before this without bothering to organize, the American Go Association was founded in 1937 CE. Go is currently going through a sort of renaissance. In the last decade or so, international tournaments have begun to take place and all sorts of firsts are being achieved. For example, Nai-wei Rui, a Chinese American immigrant, became the first woman to win a major national tournament in early 2000. Most of the strongest contemporary players are Korean and it is estimated that between 5%-10% of the Korean population plays the game on a regular basis.

Equipment:

Just as "tea" can be consumed in any old container but there are elaborate rules for a Japanese Tea Ceremony, a basic go board is easy to describe while a traditional set gets a bit complicated and artistic. At its heart, a go board needs a grid of spots and enough markers to fill all the spots. Full modern games are played on a 19x19 grid while 13x13 and 9x9 grids are sometimes used for teaching beginners (a Tibetan version of the game is 17x17 as are the oldest boards unearthed by archaeologists in China). In full modern games, 181 markers are used by the player who moves first and 180 markers go to the other. Notation usually runs letters left to right (skipping "i" because it looks kinda like "1") from "a" to "t" and numbers from bottom to top 1 to 19.

A traditional set uses smooth, rounded, blackslate stone for the first markers and smooth, rounded, whiteclamshell for the second markers. The stones should be slightly too large to fit perfectly on the board, haphazardly slapped down when placed, and not pushed into proper alignment during the course of the game so as to produce an aesthetically pleasing "organic" look by the time the game ends.

The board itself, according to tradition, should be almost but not quite square (more of that organic aesthetic) and made of wood. Black lines are etched into the surfaces and play occurs on the intersection of the lines, rather than in the squares between the lines as with chess.

The bowls that hold the stones are supposed to be oblate and wooden with lids that can be upturned to hold prisoners.

How To Play:

An unhandicapped game begins with no stones on it (in handicapped games extra stones are placed on the spots marked with "+" on the text board above). Players take turns placing stones on the board, which cannot move and remain on the board unless captured for the duration. Either player may pass at any time and when both pass the game is over.

Stones are "connected" if they are on adjacent spots in any cardinal direction but not along the diagonals. All of the spots on the board where you can add a stone such that it will be connected to stones you already have down is considered a "liberty" for the stones on the board. If a group has no liberties it is captured and removed from the board. If a stone is placed in such a way that it would immediately be captured it is a useless (or illegal, depending on Japanese or Chinese conventions) move except that: if the stone takes the last liberty away from one of the opposing groups, the opposing group dies before the new stone can be killed. Also, a player is not allowed to place a stone anywhere that would produce an identical board situation as at any point in the game. When both players pass, they figure out who has more spots on the board behind their groups of stones and the one with more territory wins.

That's all the rules. The rest is application of those rules. Here are some examples:

Basic capturing is demonstrated in many places. If X moves at 11a, 19b, 16e, 10g, 15l, or 19t then one of O's groups will be captured.

Note especially the "behind enemy lines" capture at 19t. Contrast this with G's position in the bottom left corner of the board. When you have holes in your territory it is a good thing. These holes are referred to as "eyes" and having two of them makes the group with the eyes uncapturable. If X spends a turn putting a stone at either 01a or 01c then that stone will immediately be captured and G will be just as safe as ever. A group of stones that cannot be captured is referred to as "alive".

Another thing to note: if X moves at 10g then it would seem that O could respond by moving at 10f (right where the captured piece would be taken from) and the players could go back and forth like this forever. It is to prevent this that the rule about "no board repetition" exists. If O wants to capture at 10f she has to move somewhere else first. X would then have to make a choice: respond to O's other move or prevent O from capturing at 10f by going there himself. Of course, if X responds to the other move, then O can capture and its up to her opponent to go somewhere else before taking the piece back again... this back and forth is known as a "ko" and the wild moves all around the board are called "ko threats". Generally, a ko threat must be worth more than the ko itself, otherwise the other player will just end the ko and accept whatever losses were implied by the ko threat. I've seen games played by really advanced amateurs on IGS where a ko went on for more than 50 moves.

In the bottom right a (very simple) extended application of the rules is shown. If it is W's turn, she can place a stone at 1 (03o) and capture Z's stone at 03n. However, this would be a wasted of a move because that stone is effectively already dead: if Z moves at 1, then W moves at 2, Z at 3, W at 4 and so on. This sequence runs O across the board toward the edge where W will inevitably capture Z. This is bad for Z because each captured stone is an extra point for W and at the end of the sequence W has a large group, easy to make alive, from which to grow out and surround more territory.

Ranking:

One of the nice things about Go is that it lends itself to easy, obvious, and workable handicapping. In theory, the number of ranks between two players should equal the number of extra stones that the weaker player needs in order to give the stronger player an even game. For example, a 9kyu player should be given 2 handicap stones by a 7 kyu player to make the game even. The scale runs from about 25 kyu down to 1 kyu (lower numbers indicating greater skill) and then from amateur 1 dan to amateur 10 dan (higher numbers indicating greater skill) and then from professional 1 dan to professional 10 dan. In practice, the higher levels are very close and a whole stone's handicap is more than a levels worth. Also, professionaltournamentgames are unhandicapped, so professionals get ranked by their records against other players of known strength.

Vocabulary:

Most of the Go terms in English are transcriptions from Japanese terminology, partly because they have a very long tradition of Japanese Go scholarship and partly because those are the terms that caught on among English speakers. There are a lot of terms, but here are the ones you are most likely to hear:

Atari (ah-ta-ree like the game system): Like "check" in chess, except for all stones, not just the king. It means some group has only one liberty left.

Seki (seh-kee): A situation where neither player may place the other in atari without placing herself in atari. Stalemate, with no territory awarded.

Hane (hah-neh): A diagonal move played in contact with an enemy stone. If O moves at * below then it would be called a hane.

. . . . .
. X X * .
. O O . .
. . . . .

Sente (sen-teh): Initiative. Some moves force a direct response. The player who is doing the forcing has sente and can play anywhere on the board that they feel like starting a sequence of moves.

Joseki (jo-seh-kee): A known sequences of moves near the corner that result in near-equal positions for white and black. Like a gambit in chess, except you can do a different one in each corner and they start interacting as the game progresses.

Komi (ko-mee): Score adjustment usually penalizing black for playing first. Often 5.5 points.

Dan (just like it looks): Advanced grade.

Kyu (just like it looks): Learner grade.

Me (rhymes with weigh): Japanese for an eye. Two makes the group alive.

The game of Go has a lot of terminology to simplify discussion of basic concepts and board positions. There is a Japanese word for almost everything in the game, while equivalents exist for many of them in a variety of different languages.

I will attempt to create an incomplete, but useful list of common terms in Go, using the English words where they exist, and the Japanese where they don't. (December 11, 2002): Just added VAG's nodes to my list, including some people and tournaments.

I have been visiting my parents for the last couple of weeks. One of my favorite things to do when visiting them is to walk their dog, Cody. Cody is a golden retriever the size of a great dane and has the personality of a precocious and charming four-year-old. Technically speaking, Cody, a.k.a. by the AKA "Dogstar Wild Buffalo Bill Dakota" (or something like that, none of us can remember the whole thing, and I'm sure I've left out a couple words), is a "jumbo" golden retriever although he's not a speck overweight. This is one big dog. All of which is to say that Cody is also possessed of the Go-Pee player's greatest asset: a bladder with the tensile strength and inflationary capacity of a rubber punch balloon.

1. Your neighborhood park can be mapped as go board with fat squares. While significantly larger than the standard go board, Go-pee actually has fewer squares on which to score.

2. Each point of play on the grid has a scoring marker which must be successfully tagged in order to pheromonally flip it and score the point.

Cody's ability to play depends on how wide-ranging and permissive his walk is. Tonight was a very good night, as it was relatively cool and we were able to cover a substantial number of points on the grid.

To pass from one place to another; to be in motion; to be in a state not motionless or at rest; to proceed; to advance; to make progress; -- used, in various applications, of the movement of both animate and inanimate beings, by whatever means, and also of the movements of the mind; also figuratively applied.

2.

To move upon the feet, or step by step; to walk; also, to walk step by step, or leisurely.

⇒ In old writers go is much used as opposed to run, or ride. "Whereso I go or ride." Chaucer.

You know that love Will creep in service where it can not go.Shak.

Thou must run to him; for thou hast staid so long that going will scarce serve the turn.Shak.

He fell from running to going, and from going to clambering upon his hands and his knees.Bunyan.

⇒ In Chaucer go is used frequently with the pronoun in the objective used reflexively; as, he goeth him home.

3.

To be passed on fron one to another; to pass; to circulate; hence, with for, to have currency; to be taken, accepted, or regarded.

The man went among men for an old man in the days of Saul.1 Sa. xvii. 12.

[The money] should go according to its true value.Locke.

4.

To proceed or happen in a given manner; to fare; to move on or be carried on; to have course; to come to an issue or result; to succeed; to turn out.

How goes the night, boy ?Shak.

I think, as the world goes, he was a good sort of man enough.Arbuthnot.

Whether the cause goes for me or against me, you must pay me the reward.I Watts.

5.

To proceed or tend toward a result, consequence, or product; to tend; to conduce; to be an ingredient; to avail; to apply; to contribute; -- often with the infinitive; as, this goes to show.

Against right reason all your counsels go.Dryden.

To master the foul flend there goeth some complement knowledge of theology.Sir W. Scott.

6.

To apply one's self; to set one's self; to undertake.

Seeing himself confronted by so many, like a resolute orator, he went not to denial, but to justify his cruel falsehood.Sir P. Sidney.

⇒ Go, in this sense, is often used in the present participle with the auxiliary verb to be, before an infinitive, to express a future of intention, or to denote design; as, I was going to say; I am going to begin harvest.

7.

To proceed by a mental operation; to pass in mind or by an act of the memory or imagination; -- generally with over or through.

By going over all these particulars, you may receive some tolerable satisfaction about this great subject.South.

8.

To be with young; to be pregnant; to gestate.

The fruit she goes with, I pray for heartily, that it may find Good time, and live.Shak.

9.

To move from the person speaking, or from the point whence the action is contemplated; to pass away; to leave; to depart; -- in opposition to stay and come.

I will let you go, that ye may sacrifice to the Lord your God; . . . only ye shall not go very far away.Ex. viii. 28.

10.

To pass away; to depart forever; to be lost or ruined; to perish; to decline; to decease; to die.

To reach; to extend; to lead; as, a line goes across the street; his land goes to the river; this road goes to New York.

His amorous expressions go no further than virtue may allow.Dryden.

12.

To have recourse; to resort; as, to go to law.

⇒ Go is used, in combination with many prepositions and adverbs, to denote motion of the kind indicated by the preposition or adverb, in which, and not in the verb, lies the principal force of the expression; as, to go against to go into, to go out, to go aside, to go astray, etc.

Go to, come; move; go away; -- a phrase of exclamation, serious or ironical. --To go a- begging, not to be in demand; to be undesired. --To go about. (a) To set about; to enter upon a scheme of action; to undertake. "They went about to slay him." Acts ix. 29.

They never go about . . . to hide or palliate their vices.Swift.

(b) (Naut.) To tack; to turn the head of a ship; to wear. --To go abraod. (a) To go to a foreign country. (b) To go out of doors. (c) To become public; to be published or disclosed; to be current.

Then went this saying abroad among the brethren.John xxi. 23.

--To go against. (a) To march against; to attack. (b) To be in opposition to; to be disagreeable to. --To go ahead. (a) To go in advance. (b) To go on; to make progress; to proceed. --To go and come. See To come and go, under Come. --To go aside. (a) To withdraw; to retire.

He . . . went aside privately into a desert place.Luke. ix. 10.

(b) To go from what is right; to err. Num. v. 29.--To go back on. (a) To retrace (one's path or footsteps). (b) To abandon; to turn against; to betray. [Slang, U. S.] --To go below (Naut), to go below deck. --To go between, to interpose or mediate between; to be a secret agent between parties; in a bad sense, to pander. --To go beyond. See under Beyond. --To go by, to pass away unnoticed; to omit. --To go by the board (Naut.), to fall or be carried overboard; as, the mast went by the board. --To go down. (a) To descend. (b) To go below the horizon; as, the sun has gone down. (c) To sink; to founder; -- said of ships, etc. (d) To be swallowed; -- used literally or figuratively. [Colloq.]

Nothing so ridiculous, . . . but it goes down whole with him for truth.L' Estrange.

--To go far. (a) To go to a distance. (b) To have much weight or influence. --To go for. (a) To go in quest of. (b) To represent; to pass for. (c) To favor; to advocate. (d) To attack; to assault. [Low]

(e) To sell for; to be parted with for (a price). --To go for nothing, to be parted with for no compensation or result; to have no value, efficacy, or influence; to count for nothing. --To go forth. (a) To depart from a place. (b) To be divulged or made generally known; to emanate.

The law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.Micah iv. 2.

(a) To go for; to favor or advocate (a candidate, a measure, etc.). (b) To seek to acquire or attain to (wealth, honor, preferment, etc.) (c) To complete for (a reward, election, etc.). (d) To make the object of one's labors, studies, etc.

(b) To cease; to intermit; as, this sickness went off. (c) To die. Shak.

(d) To explode or be discharged; -- said of gunpowder, of a gun, a mine, etc. (e) To find a purchaser; to be sold or disposed of. (f) To pass off; to take place; to be accomplished.

The wedding went off much as such affairs do.Mrs. Caskell.

--To go on. (a) To proceed; to advance further; to continue; as, to go on reading. (b) To be put or drawn on; to fit over; as, the coat will not go on. --To go all fours, to correspond exactly, point for point.

It is not easy to make a simile go on all fours.Macaulay.

--To go out. (a) To issue forth from a place. (b) To go abroad; to make an excursion or expedition.

There are other men fitter to go out than I.Shak.

What went ye out for to see ?Matt. xi. 7, 8, 9.

(c) To become diffused, divulged, or spread abroad, as news, fame etc. (d) To expire; to die; to cease; to come to an end; as, the light has gone out.

Life itself goes out at thy displeasure.Addison.

--To go over. (a) To traverse; to cross, as a river, boundary, etc.; to change sides.

I must not go over Jordan.Deut. iv. 22.

Let me go over, and see the good land that is beyond Jordan.Deut. iii. 25.

Ishmael . . . departed to go over to the Ammonites.Jer. xli. 10.

(b) To read, or study; to examine; to review; as, to go over one's accounts.

If we go over the laws of Christianity, we shall find that . . . they enjoin the same thing.Tillotson.

(c) To transcend; to surpass. (d) To be postponed; as, the bill went over for the session. (e) (Chem.) To be converted (into a specified substance or material); as, monoclinic sulphur goes over into orthorhombic, by standing; sucrose goes over into dextrose and levulose. --To go through. (a) To accomplish; as, to go through a work. (b) To suffer; to endure to the end; as, to go through a surgical operation or a tedious illness. (c) To spend completely; to exhaust, as a fortune. (d) To strip or despoil (one) of his property. [Slang]

(e) To botch or bungle a business. [Scot.] --To go through with, to perform, as a calculation, to the end; to complete. --To go to ground. (a) To escape into a hole; -- said of a hunted fox. (b) To fall in battle. --To go to naught (Colloq.), to prove abortive, or unavailling. --To go under. (a) To set; -- said of the sun. (b) To be known or recognized by (a name, title, etc.).

(c) To be overwhelmed, submerged, or defeated; to perish; to succumb. --To go up, to come to nothing; to prove abortive; to fail. [Slang] --To go upon, to act upon, as a foundation or hypothesis. --To go with. (a) To accompany. (b) To coincide or agree with. (c) To suit; to harmonize with. --To go (well, ill, or hard) with, to affect (one) in such manner. --To go without, to be, or to remain, destitute of. --To go wrong. (a) To take a wrong road or direction; to wander or stray. (b) To depart from virtue. (c) To happen unfortunately. (d) To miss success. --To let go, to allow to depart; to quit one's hold; to release.

To take, as a share in an enterprise; to undertake or become responsible for; to bear a part in.

They to go equal shares in the booty.L'Estrange.

2.

To bet or wager; as, I'll go you a shilling. [Colloq.]

To go halves, to share with another equally. --To go it, to behave in a wild manner; to be uproarious; to carry on; also, to proceed; to make progress. [Colloq.] --To go it alone (Card Playing), to play a hand without the assistance of one's partner. --To go it blind. (a) To act in a rash, reckless, or headlong manner. [Slang]

(b) (Card Playing) To bet without having examined the cards. --To go one's way, to set forth; to depart.